


The measure of my lore

by Petra



Series: The art of accessorizing [3]
Category: DC Animated Universe (Timmverse), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Identity Porn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-06
Updated: 2007-05-06
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:36:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: He never intended to take Dick's place, any more than he wanted to take Jason's.





	The measure of my lore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/gifts).



> Thanks to Betty and Jack for listening and to Tavella for beta reading.

Bruce blinks when he sees Tim's uniform, but he only hesitates a second. "Nightwing. I need you in the financial district tonight. Croc is out."

It's not sufficient repayment for the difficulty of creating a new uniform without Wayne Enterprises direct funding; Alfred was very helpful in that respect, but there were certain pieces that required more time than they would have if Tim had constructed it with Bruce's knowledge.

Robin's laughter heals Tim's dignity somewhat, perversely. He drops by First Gotham Federal at two fifty-seven and says, "Holy fuck," then makes a show of walking around Tim to get a better eyeful. "I like the --" he taps Tim's chest, right on the gold-edged bird. "Makes me think of home."

Tim borrowed the bird motif from the Nightwing from Robin's timeline, but only after considering a wide array of options from the classically Kryptonian through to the rather far-fetched possibility of growing his hair long and adopting a golden chevron. None of the directly derivative uniforms were entirely appropriate, though; like his Robin suit, this is more of an homage to the first owner's than an imitation.

He never intended to take Dick's place, any more than he wanted to take Jason's. He has done his best to construct a reasonable facsimile of his persona, but it's flawed. Tim's smile feels nothing like Dick's. At some point, this may stop feeling problematic. "Is that a good thing?" he asks Robin. He hasn't stopped missing the cape, either, but he can pin Robin against the wall just as readily without it.

"Sure." Robin wriggles against him, slipping right off his armor. "Damn. You're even better protected than you used to be."

"There was no point in downgrading the armor." He will not be able to perform some of the signature Nightwing moves with the particular forms of plating he's chosen, but it's a case of "Doctor, will I be able to play the piano when my hands heal?" He can't perform many of Dick's most notable moves stark naked.

Robin twists out of his grip and gives him another once-over. "Right, I can see that. When are you coming over?"

Finishing the uniform has taken half of his allotted sleep time for the last three weeks. "Tomorrow."

Despite their shared genetics, Tim doubts that he can make his face pout that much. He's reluctant to try. In most cities, the threat that the breeze might change and freeze one's face in an unflattering expression is merely idle; in Gotham, it is unfortunately plausible. "Where are you supposed to be patrolling, Robin?"

Robin's shrug flutters his cape. Tim misses his own sharply. "Oh, diamonds. You know."

The Nightwing voice gets easier every time he uses it. "You should go."

Robin puts his hands on his hips. "You should fucking blow me."

The smile gets easier, too. "Tomorrow."

Robin's smile is filthy enough that Tim doesn't have to see it to hear it. "C'mon, N. Suck my cock. Let me christen that outfit for you."

If he says he wants to keep it pristine, he'll end up in the sewers before the night is over. He's had enough fresh Robin uniforms to trust Murphy's Law in this regard, particularly on a night when they're Croc hunting. "Tomorrow, Robin."

"Man, I thought you knew better than to put a stick up your ass just because you switched codenames." Robin wrinkles his nose. "I know it's traditional, but you didn't need to go that damn far."

Tim spreads his hands and backs off a few steps -- not out of reach, but out of instant reach. "I have my reasons."

"They'd better be good." Robin sniffs and looks down into the street. "Shit -- Croc and about five goons."

Tim glances to confirm and shoots his new grapple, keying his comm as he does so. "B, N. Croc sighted, five backup, at the location you assigned me."

"N, I'll be there in two minutes. Engage at your discretion."

Robin is already off the roof. "Engaging," Tim says, and leaps.

*

It's no small measure of tradition for Nightwing to be completely exhausted. Tim leaves himself half again as much time to sleep as he otherwise would -- time he would normally spend having sex with Robin.

The next day, he feels far more conscious than he has since he started cutting back on sleep. There's no way he's going to dodge his extracurricular responsibilities; among other things, Robin was sulky enough at being put off that Tim more than half expects handcuffs tonight. He tells his parents he'll be working late on a project and spending the night, and gives them Oracle's number.

Oracle chuckles in his ear in her computer-distorted voice when he informs her. "And when are you going to show me your new outfit up close?"

"Tonight," he promises.

"I'll hold you to that."

"I'll do my best, O."

Before he heads to the manor, he steals an hour of Steph's time.

"How are things in the old clubhouse?" she asks, when they've run out of school small-talk, but have plenty of french fries left.

"A little shaken up," he admits.

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What, again?"

Tim pours a little more ketchup into his side of the paper dish and glances up to make sure she's not drinking anything. "I took over for N."

Steph splutters anyway. "You -- wow." She grins. "With the cleavage?"

He had given it serious consideration for nostalgic reasons, but in the end, he simply doesn't have Dick's build. "No, it wouldn't suit me."

She concedes this with a nod. "It would've been fun to watch you try. Wow. -- Man, I am still not calling you that."

Tim smiles and takes another three fries. "It could be worse. I could be Green Lantern."

"You could." Steph punches him in the arm, laughing. "I'd be totally freaked out, but you could."

"And this is okay?"

As soon as the words are out, he wishes he hadn't asked. If it's not okay, what exactly will he say to mend it? Nothing, because he's not going to relinquish this for anyone.

But she just grins. "If you stop by some night and give me a little fashion show, sure."

Tim lets his breath out. "I'll put you on my itinerary."

"Excellent." She glances at her watch. "I gotta go, or my geometry homework will be kicking my ass until your bedtime."

Tim walks her back home and she kisses him at the door. She feels softer now than she has in years, far more so than Robin, and for a few breaths he wishes he were someone who could stay and help her with her homework.

When he lets her go, she smiles at him. "Careful out there -- N."

He squeezes her hand. "You bet."

Even with the french fries, he's at the manor an hour early. "Good to see you looking well, Master Timothy," Alfred says.

"Thank you again for your help."

"Think nothing of it." There will be something, at some point, that he can do to pay Alfred back, but he doesn't know what it is, yet.

Robin is in the middle of dinner when he comes in, and he feels marginally guilty for all the leftover vegetables that get abandoned when Robin kisses him. "So." He has the same ability to make a single syllable a sentence that everyone who has spent time in this house does. It seems stranger coming from Robin, though, because he uses it less frequently.

"What, R?"

Robin's smile isn't quite streetworthy. "You're all weird. Even for you."

Tim raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

Robin pokes him in the stomach. "I knew you were wearing that suit. It makes you move different." He tilts his head to one side. "Not like Dick, either. Just -- not like you."

He's going to have to study his own movements, clearly. If he manages to visit Oracle tonight, perhaps she'll be willing to provide him with the appropriate data. "I'll be happy to work on correcting that."

"No -- no, stop it." Robin grabs him by his shirtfront and pulls him in for a close-mouthed kiss that's hard enough to bruise. "Are you okay, is all."

"Yes."

Compared to Steph's kisses, Robin is demanding, all tongue and attacking and needing the same right back. The difference has nothing to do with their genitalia. He's known that as long as he's been kissing Robin. Steph doesn't need to have sex -- maybe still doesn't want to, for her own reasons. Robin's priorities are very different.

It makes this kiss a noteworthy aberration on Robin's part, and the way he's avoiding Tim's eyes is equally telling. "I never really -- working with Nightwing was always pretty great, but we didn't --"

Nightwing's kisses don't belong in the dining room. Tim kisses Robin gently, teasing him into compliance. "I'm not him. I don't want to be -- I don't want to be the Dick I know, let alone yours."

Robin's leer and grab at his crotch are half-hearted, de rigueur at best. "You're enough of a dick already."

"Glad you've gotten that out of your system." Tim kisses him again, and Robin bites his lip. "We have fifty minutes before we have to be down there and suited up."

Robin gets a good grip on his sleeve and heads for his room. "You'd better show me how to take off your new ensemble, anyhow. If you get hurt out there --"

"There are diagrams in the computers. I uploaded them last night."

"Diagrams." Robin rolls his eyes. "Like that's as good as a demonstration."

There's still light from the setting sun in Robin's room, turning everything golden, including Robin's normally pale skin. "Here --" Tim shows him where the catches are and demonstrates all the codes and sequences, then pushes Robin's hands away and puts it back on before he gets too aroused to do the job right.

Robin bites his ear. "It was just an excuse, N."

"I know." Tim kisses him again. "Show me you were paying attention and I'll leave it off longer this time."

"Yes, Daddy," with its necessary eyebrow waggle shouldn't be better than Robin's earlier reticence, but it really is.

Forty minutes later, Robin hands him his second gauntlet and puts his own mask on. "So, is this about Batman, or what?"

Tim pulls the glove on. "Some of it."

Robin grimaces at him. "Is it about Dick? Because --"

"It's about Bruce," Tim says.

"Then -- it's about Batman."

Robin has seen all of the files Bruce still possesses from the time of Vesper Fairchild's murder, but their implications apparently escaped him. "Batman needs a Robin," Tim says, "but Bruce needs someone to remind him that the cowl comes off."

Robin shrugs. "He's a lot less fun when he's just Bruce. You're welcome to him."

Tim nods. "Thank you."

*

"I'm glad you skipped the robin's egg blue," Oracle says, tracing the path of the V that isn't part of Tim's uniform at all. "It's not your color."

"No, I know." Tim turns around for her. "You don't think the bird is too --"

"You're not looking for a new job, are you?" She runs her thumb over the bird's beak. "This looks a lot more like you're skipping town."

Tim shakes his head. "Neither of those things. This -- this universe suits me as well as any."

Oracle smiles, though it doesn't reach her eyes. "You managed not to maim the other Bruce."

He didn't manage to get Dick to stay where he belongs, and that still makes him ache in psychosomatic pain. "By sheer willpower."

Her smile turns more genuine. "Still, it was an achievement." She looks him over again. "You're making that outfit work, too."

"Thank you."

An alarm goes off on her computer. "Ah -- sounds like they need you out there at Dixon and Tenth."

The urge to kiss her goodbye is almost entirely illusory. "Tell B I'm on my way?"

"You got it, N."

*

It's a relatively quiet night, but if he'd wanted a splashy debut as Nightwing, he would've gone to Blüdhaven and teamed up with Batgirl. A little gang violence, a handful of muggings, and Tim could go home, but he's already made his excuses. It seems a shame to waste them.

The new uniform is designed to wash clean with a minimum of maintenance, so he tends to it while Robin showers. By the time it's tidy -- it took no serious damage -- Robin is in a bathrobe and yawning. "See you upstairs, N."

"'Night, Robin." It's not a yes or a no, and Robin's raised eyebrows let him know his ambiguity is appreciated. He leaves his uniform in its pieces and ducks into the shower.

Bruce joins him two minutes later and says, "You have some minor chafing on your lower back."

Tim runs his fingers over the area and finds the somewhat raw patch. "I'll increase the padding. Thanks."

"The design was effective, otherwise." Bruce takes half a step toward him and rinses the shampoo out of his own hair.

The praise -- however oblique -- makes Tim pause. "If you had any suggestions for improvement, I would be glad to hear them."

"When I've observed you enough to be able to quantify the differences due to your change in roles, as opposed to the uniform, I may have some." Bruce is staring at him outright now.

It shouldn't have to be like this, but --

Tim nods. "Of course." He turns off the water and Bruce embraces him.

He didn't have the data, at the outset, to indicate that Batman needed a Nightwing. It's not Batman's hand on his side, fingers missing the chafed spots with precision.

Bruce's smiles are the only ones that are ever so wry. "You never cease to surprise me."

"I could say the same of you." There is a scar -- worse than some, less fearsome than others -- that runs across Bruce's left pectoral, from when Tim was learning how to deal with knives in hand-to-hand fighting. It's not the worst damage Tim has given him, but it's difficult for anyone to predict which wounds will scar.

Tim runs one finger down the curving path it takes, far enough from major arteries that it wasn't life threatening. It's still quite showy.

Bruce covers his hand. "Nightwing."

A statement, an invocation -- and yet, the way Bruce is focused on him, there's no chance he's seeing anyone but Tim. Dick would attach no particular meaning to that scar. Dick wouldn't stand in the cooling shower with Bruce for such a long time. Their affection was always too problematic.

"For as long as it serves -- our purposes." Tim means to smile.

Bruce kisses him in the midst of it. His mouth is ridiculously tentative, as if Tim has ever needed to be coaxed into anything. There is nothing there that feels like kissing Batman -- that disastrous mistake -- or anything but what it is. He's not pretending to be Robin anymore. Bruce runs his fingers through Tim's hair, disarranging it even more than the quick wash had. Tim presses his palm against the scar on Bruce's chest and bites at his lip.

Bruce pulls away a few inches -- too many, but objectively, not far at all. "Tim --"

"Yes." He squeezes Bruce's shoulder. "I'm not -- Robin. I won't pretend again."

"It would be disconcerting, to say the least." Bruce's smile doesn't reach his mouth, but it doesn't have to. Tim kisses him again instead of waiting for an expression he doesn't need to see.

Bruce's tongue is quick against his, testing, perhaps, and finding -- enough to make Tim's knees shake. If he were not leaning on Bruce, he would need a wall. Bruce moves his hand to Tim's hip, and -- that's -- he takes a step back and Bruce gives him a searching look. He smiles. "I'm afraid I don't have good enough balance to be Nightwing."

"We can waive the requirement, this once." Another kiss, and Bruce is leaning against him, chuckling softly.

If they stopped now, and didn't touch for at least five minutes, Tim's knees might be up to the stairs. His hands aren't in line with this possibility, though; they'd rather pull Bruce closer -- if he leans on Tim much harder, it will be difficult to breathe. Tim's demands for more kisses make matters worse. Not that Bruce is complaining. "We should --"

Bruce kisses his neck over one of the harder scars he's ever had to explain. Still -- not one he inflicted. "Are you balanced enough now?"

"I could climb the stairs," Tim lies boldly.

"If you needed to, I'm sure." Bruce takes his hand and kisses his palm. "Soon enough."

That's not a time that has ever existed in the rules of this place, or the laws that govern everything between them.

But Bruce hasn't given him that particular shade of rueful smile before. "Tim --" Bruce licks his thumb -- lingering. "How much of your sexual practice has to do with your tastes, and how much is Robin's -- predilections?"

Tim runs his thumb over Bruce's lower lip. "We have complementary -- fetishes, but -- I don't need you to put the cowl on for me."

Bruce bites his fingertip. "Or order you to deprive yourself of orgasm?"

"You hardly balked at it."

"Because you needed me not to." Bruce interlaces their fingers. "When you walked out, it was intensely difficult to let you go."

Tim wasn't himself, then; as much as he could, he'd been imitating Robin. Bruce had let him try, and had let him know how much he was failing. It wasn't the last time Tim felt as if he was truly Robin. It was the last time he'd tried to be.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Tim squeezes Bruce's hand and leans against the wall. "I couldn't stay."

"You've broken character before." Bruce kisses his ear and he shivers.

He's never had his character broken for him. Lost, not broken -- and if Bruce needs him to play Robin, can he? He can practically feel the bird on his chest. This, then -- he knew this about Nightwing, but it's never stung this way.

Tim tilts his head to give Bruce better access. "Never so thoroughly."

"Hmm." Bruce kisses the hollow of his collarbone. "Check the padding on your uniform's collar --" he presses his tongue against the line where it sits on Tim's neck. It stings faintly.

"Noted. I --" Tim squeezes his shoulder to make his own hand stop shaking. "I don't know how much of your sexual practice is --"

Bruce's kiss is as much a laugh as anything. "I'd like to undress you myself, tomorrow."

Robin's uniforms are often strewn around the cave, though who benefits most from that untidiness is unclear. "I only have one spare at present."

"That can be remedied." Bruce kisses him again and strokes Tim's nipple with his thumb.

He has been more aroused than this and still managed to keep enough of Batman's mannerisms to please Robin. Nightwing's mannerisms -- he puts his hands on Bruce's hips and pulls him closer, moaning into his mouth. "Please, I --"

He can feel Bruce's shudder all through his body. "Yes."

Tim rocks against him and shivers -- the slide of water-slick skin is less perfect than Bruce's gasp. If he could let himself lose his control entirely, he would.

That would break the only character he has left. He tightens his fingers on Bruce's hips and kisses him harder, muffling his own whimper by sucking on Bruce's tongue.

Bruce thrusts against his hip and tangles his fingers in Tim's hair, making noises so soft they'd be lost if he were wearing armor. In the echo chamber of the shower, they rumble, not free and easy, but real. "Tim," he says, his voice as low as Batman's but with none of that edge.

Tim smiles at him -- not Robin's smile, or the one he means to use for Nightwing, but the best approximation of his own smile that he can manage when he's interrupted by the urge to moan. If Bruce is right, and he's entirely himself, then -- perhaps this was the right thing to do.

Batman needs --

He wants to ask, and never wants to hear the answer.

Bruce needs him right where he is -- he never seems as big as he is, somehow, unless they're sparring, but he's holding Tim against the wall and kissing him breathless again, his hips jerking spasmodically. If there were some reason to get free, it would be possible, but Bruce is on him, over him -- coming on his stomach with a shudder and a muffled shout.

"God, Bruce --" Tim bites his lip and wants to beg. Would Nightwing --

Bruce wraps his hand around Tim's erection and jerks him -- he was paying attention, that time -- the speed is --

Tim kisses him again, trying to stop hearing himself moan. Nightwing should have his legs around Bruce's waist, but there's no time, not when he can't keep quiet. Not when Bruce squeezes him like that and he has to come, thrusting into it, so hard his vision greys out.

He doesn't have to see to kiss Bruce and lean against the wall. It's getting too cold pretty quickly, and he can't help the shiver.

Bruce breaks the kiss, gives him another quick kiss on the cheek, and turns the water back on. "Are you going home tonight?"

"No."

*

"That's one impressive hickey you've got there," Oracle says in Tim's ear, as soon as he's suited up.

The collar more than covers it from both her cameras and Bruce's eyes. "I'm aware of that, O," Tim says.

Bruce's smile is momentary, but no less real for all of that. He says, "I'll go tear Robin away from his video game. Patrol in five minutes."

"See you on the streets," Tim says, and heads for his bike. It's one of the ones he used as Robin, but now it's matte black.

"That went better than the last attempt," Oracle says, and he can hear her smile. There's no point in her pretending ignorance, nor in his ignoring how much she knows.

He refuses to admit, however, that her knowing leer makes him blush. "Yes," he says, and pulls out of the cave.

She leaves him alone -- possibly while she negotiates the sale of several islands, or the overthrow of a gang lord in Kampuchea -- and then asks, "Was that the point, N?"

Tim leans into a curve that he would normally take more slowly -- but that Nightwing would always speed through. "One of them." Oracle doesn't acknowledge this. After the next curve, he adds, "I wasn't a very good Robin."

She snorts in his ear in a crackle of distortion. "You were pretty damn good at it. You just weren't much like the others."

"R is."

"For good or ill, yes. Sometimes." She types something. "So -- you don't want to be our dear departed, and you don't want to have to measure yourself against him -- why Nightwing?"

Tim sighs. "Continuity, as much as anything."

"There are a million other names, Former Boy Wonder --"

"I know." He didn't intend to cut her off, but the nickname stings. "I don't want to hear people say they miss -- N."

"Ah. So you're appropriating the name."

Tim smiles. "If you want to put in that way."

"Get yourself to Grant Park," Oracle says, suddenly all business. "Near the statue of Robin Hood. Looks like a gang meeting."

He's going more than ninety by the time he says, "Acknowledged, O." The speed of the bike is nothing new, but it feels different, somehow.

He takes out four henchmen from the shadows, managing not to alert the others, before Oracle pages him with, "Backup at 3-o'clock," and he spots Batman and Robin against the darkness of the trees.

Then the battle is on, and he's up in the tree so he can fall on another four, bullets flying straight through the place he just was and ricocheting off of the statue. The machine gun wielders take each other out with unfriendly fire. Tim catches the head of the Donzetti family with bolos and defends him with all the weaponry he has to hand -- modified batarangs, gas marbles, and the power of his own kicks.

Robin's whistle when the last one goes down lets him know he was moving too slowly. He hadn't meant to put on a show. "Not bad, N."

"Not bad yourself," he says, and grabs Robin in a headlock. If he's going to be Nightwing, he needs to perfect his noogies.

Batman grabs Donzetti by the collar and throws him against a tree to get some information out of him. Tim could -- Nightwing could protest, but there's no real point to it. They're in Gotham. It's all Batman's territory.

He could go to Blüdhaven -- or anywhere -- but when Robin pulls away from him and grins at Batman, he knows he won't.

"I'll get back to the beat," he says, and tosses Batman a salute he won't see.

Robin follows him. "You need backup more than he does."

Nightwing raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm fine."

Robin sticks his tongue out at him and cartwheels over to where he left the bike. "O says you and B are getting along pretty well."

"That's not news."

"Is so." Robin shrugs. "Give me a ride to Waid and I'll shadow you."

Nightwing grins at him. "Fine, but you're riding bitch."

"If I have to." Robin doesn't have to grind against his back that much to keep his balance. "So you and B, huh."

"Still not news." It's also not news that Bruce is recording all their comm traffic, so Nightwing won't remind Robin of that.

"I guess this time he didn't call you 'Robin.'"

He can hear Robin's smirk, and that he doesn't actually mean it. "As someone I know would say, 'Not my kink.'"

"It's totally his, though." Another aimless grind. "And what do you call him?"

"I told you," Nightwing says, keeping his voice level. He pulls to a stop. "Hit the roofs."

"Aye-aye, Nightwing, sir." Robin gets off and is up the side of the building as fast as he can go without a grapple.

Nightwing's back feels irrationally cold.

Robin's voice is still as close in his ear as if he were still sitting there. "You going to marry him now?"

"No more than you have."

Robin laughs once and fires his grapple to the next building. "That's okay, then."

Tim looks up to watch him fly. "You know where to find me when you need me, R."

"'course I do. I just --" He makes another jump, this time without his grapple. "-- just wanted to know you'd still be there."

"Yes. Head north."

"You got it, Nightwing."


End file.
